Beverage of the Week: XXI Martinis are low effort, high quality boozing

Premade martinis that leave heavily into the sweet side of the cocktail? As a lazy man, I'm interested.

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

It’s been a while since I had an actual, proper martini. Actually, it’s possible I’ve only had one or two in my lifetime.

Sure, there was an undergrad dalliance with something approaching an apple-tini (I regret nothing). There was a stretch of some wild, extremely potent cocktails poured by a wonderful septuagenarian named “Martini Bob” at Madison’s sadly shuttered Smoky’s Supper Club. But for the most part, the intersection of vodka or gin and vermouth has been a blind spot in my boozing career.

It still mostly is, but the rise of espresso martinis has been unignorable. I opted for a canned version when I was rolling through Two Roads’ lineup this summer. Now, thanks to XXI, I’ve got more access to this corner of the cocktail spectrum I rarely visit.

XXI Martinis are ready-to-drink bottles that take the effort of shaking, straining or stirring out of the equation. They’re also nestled tightly in the marketplace of “fun martinis” — no heavy gin or olive juice here, just sweeter flavors like chocolate, peach and, of course, espresso. That’s a win for me; hell, I already admitted my soft spot for sour apple schnapps. This left me eager to see if XXI deserves a place in my liquor cabinet.